STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS. JAMES M. HARRIS (13-10-2986, CAMDEN COUNTY AND STATEWIDE)

CourtNew Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division
DecidedNovember 15, 2018
DocketA-3694-15T4
StatusPublished

This text of STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS. JAMES M. HARRIS (13-10-2986, CAMDEN COUNTY AND STATEWIDE) (STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS. JAMES M. HARRIS (13-10-2986, CAMDEN COUNTY AND STATEWIDE)) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS. JAMES M. HARRIS (13-10-2986, CAMDEN COUNTY AND STATEWIDE), (N.J. Ct. App. 2018).

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY APPELLATE DIVISION DOCKET NO. A-3694-15T4

STATE OF NEW JERSEY,

Plaintiff-Respondent, APPROVED FOR PUBLICATION

November 15, 2018 v. APPELLATE DIVISION JAMES HARRIS, a/k/a JAMES M. HARRIS III,

Defendant-Appellant. _______________________

Argued September 13, 2018 – Decided November 15, 2018

Before Judges Koblitz, Ostrer and Currier.

On appeal from Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Camden County, Indictment No. 13-10-2986.

Stephen W. Kirsch, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant (Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney; Stephen W. Kirsch, of counsel and on the brief).

Linda A. Shashoua, Assistant Prosecutor, argued the cause for respondent (Mary Eva Colalillo, Camden County Prosecutor, attorney; Linda A. Shashoua, of counsel and on the brief).

The opinion of the court was delivered by

KOBLITZ, P.J.A.D. After a December 2011 drug-related shooting of two men, a jury convicted

defendant James Harris of two counts of first-degree murder, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-

3(a)(1) or (2); second-degree unlawful possession of a handgun, N.J.S.A. 2C:39-

5(b); and second-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose,

N.J.S.A. 2C:39-4(a). The judge sentenced defendant to an aggregate seventy-

five-year term of imprisonment under the No Early Release Act, N.J.S.A. 2C:43-

7.2. Defendant appeals, arguing that a photograph obtained in response to a

communications data warrant (CDW) was beyond the scope of the warrant and

should have been suppressed, the guilty verdict was improperly coerced by

sending the jury back to deliberate after its third declared deadlock, and a new

trial should have been granted based on a newly discovered defense witness.

We reverse and remand for a new trial because the incriminating photograph of

a gun and ammunition was obtained in violation of the New Jersey Constitution

and its admission was not harmless.

Police found the bodies of Daquan Hines and Kevin Gould in the driver's

and passenger's seats of a gold 1995 Toyota Camry. They were shot to death by

the same gun.

At trial, Donnell Ancrum, the State's principal witness, testified to the

following facts. Gould called Ancrum in the morning to say he was going to be

A-3694-15T4 2 in Ancrum's part of town "to sell some weed." Ancrum told Gould he would

"check out" the marijuana.

That evening, Hines was in the driver's seat, Gould in the front passenger

seat, and Ancrum in the back seat behind Gould. Ancrum saw a man

approaching the car. Ancrum got out of the car to let the man into the back seat

of the passenger side where he had been sitting. Ancrum began to walk around

to the front of the car when he heard gunshots from inside the car. He

immediately ran off to call defendant to pick him up.

Ancrum "thought" that defendant was the gunman, but was not completely

certain. Ancrum did not clarify why he would call defendant for a ride if he

knew defendant had just entered the car and shot two people. The jury heard

Ancrum's video-recorded statement, his third statement to police, given nine

months after the murder. He told Camden County Prosecutor's Detective

Charles Farrell, for the first time, that it was defendant, who came into the car

and shot Hines and Gould. Defendant stayed with Ancrum for three nights after

the murders.

Cell phone records revealed sixteen calls between Ancrum and defendant

that day, including one shortly before the killings, and five calls after the

killings. Cell site history tracked defendant's phone before and after the killings,

A-3694-15T4 3 showing that between 6:13 p.m. and 8:42 p.m. that night, defendant was at home

in Sicklerville. At 9:23 p.m., both defendant's and Ancrum's phones were in the

crime scene area. By 9:26 p.m., both phones were "just outside" of the crime

scene area, and then defendant's phone was back near his home around 10:30

p.m.

A State's witness testified that he was incarcerated in the cell next to

defendant between December 2011 and June 2012. This witness, who

cooperated as part of his federal plea agreement, testified that defendant

confessed to the murders.

The State introduced into evidence an October 29, 2011 photograph from

defendant's cell phone depicting two handguns and three boxes of ammunition.

One of the guns was a Hi Point .380 caliber semi-automatic pistol, and some of

the ammunition was .380-caliber TulAmmo ammunition, the same as that used

in the murders.

On appeal, defendant argues:

POINT I: THE MOTION TO SUPPRESS THE PHOTO OF GUNS AND AMMUNITION SHOULD HAVE BEEN GRANTED BECAUSE THE JUDGE ERRED WHEN FINDING THE PHOTO TO HAVE BEEN THE FRUIT OF A LAWFUL "PLAIN VIEW" SEARCH AND SEIZURE. JUST AS AN OFFICER MAY NOT PICK UP AND MOVE AN ITEM TO BRING IT INTO A BETTER "VIEW," THIS

A-3694-15T4 4 OFFICER DID NOT HAVE PROBABLE CAUSE TO OPEN THE COMPUTER FILE THAT CONTAINED THE PHOTO IN ORDER TO VIEW THAT PHOTO; ADDITIONALLY, THE DISCOVERY OF THE PHOTO WAS NOT "INADVERTENT," AS THE CASE LAW REQUIRED AT THE TIME.

POINT II: THE JUDGE'S HANDLING OF THREE SEPARATE JURY DEADLOCKS, AFTER FOUR DAYS OF DELIBERATIONS, IMPROPERLY CONVEYED TO JURORS THAT THEY WERE BEING COMPELLED TO RETURN A UNANIMOUS VERDICT, THEREBY INAPPROPRIATELY COERCING THAT VERDICT.

POINT III: THE MOTION FOR A NEW TRIAL BASED ON NEWLY DISCOVERED EVIDENCE SHOULD HAVE BEEN GRANTED. THE PROFFERED NEW WITNESS WOULD HAVE COMPLETELY UNDERMINED THE CREDIBILITY OF THE STATE'S PRINCIPAL WITNESS, THUS RAISING A PROBABILITY THAT THE EVIDENCE WOULD HAVE AFFECTED THE VERDICT UNDER THE STANDARD OF STATE V. CARTER.

I. Motion to Suppress

At the hearing on defendant's motion to suppress the photograph of the

handgun and ammunition, the judge heard testimony from two witnesses:

Detective Farrell, who reviewed the computer disc (CD) containing the

subpoenaed information from Sprint and found the photograph; and Ryan

Harger, a supervisor and record custodian for Sprint in the "subpoena

compliance group." Farrell discovered the October 29, 2011 photograph when

A-3694-15T4 5 Sprint responded to the CDW covering defendant's phone use from December 1

to December 16, 2011. Sprint provided a call log for that December time range

only, but, without restriction, supplied all Picture Mail records associated with

defendant's Sprint account. 1 Although the caption of the CDW included the

word "photograph," the warrant by its terms did not seek photographs at all, but

rather

all calls, local and long distance, made from and to [defendant's phone number] including cellular telephone call detail records, CELL SITE locations, records and content of incoming and outgoing text messages, and subscriber information for [defendant's phone number] . . . for the period of December 1, 201[1] through and including December 16, 2011, and the obtaining of subscriber information . . . .

The October photograph of the guns and ammunition was sent well outside

the two-week December time frame of the CDW. Harger testified that it was

Sprint's protocol at that time to provide all electronic folders containing

photographs from Picture Mail without sorting them by date, regardless of the

dates requested in the CDW. The folders were each designated by a lengthy

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STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS. JAMES M. HARRIS (13-10-2986, CAMDEN COUNTY AND STATEWIDE), Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-of-new-jersey-vs-james-m-harris-13-10-2986-camden-county-and-njsuperctappdiv-2018.